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<title>Men may come, and men may go (But I live on forever) by Mriti (Young_Leaf)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24203755">Men may come, and men may go (But I live on forever)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Young_Leaf/pseuds/Mriti'>Mriti (Young_Leaf)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5+1 Things, Alternate Universe- Mythology, Cisswap, F/F, F/M, Japanese Mythology and Folklore, M/M, MerMay, Not accurate to Japanese Mythology and Folklore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:34:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,077</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24203755</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Young_Leaf/pseuds/Mriti</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They say eating the flesh of Ningyo grants one immortality.</p><p> </p><p>5 times Zuko fell for those on the surface, and the one time she left it alone.</p><p> </p><p>Inspired by the Ningyo myth</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Azula &amp; Zuko (Avatar), Azula/Yue (Avatar), Jet/Zuko (Avatar), Jin/Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Suki/Zuko (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>94</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Men may come, and men may go (But I live on forever)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title taken from here: https://www.wussu.com/poems/alttb.htm</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Mai</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>He caught her in his net one day, and the first thing he did was cut her out and throw her back into the sea, and she falls in love with his stormy yet cold grey eyes. She comes back to same spot everyday, in hopes that she’ll see him again, but whenever she does, he keeps cutting her out of a net and throwing her back into the sea, scolding her and telling her to ‘leave’ and that ‘it isn’t safe for you here.’ He keeps telling her these things every time he has to cut her out. Whenever another surface dweller is with him, they call him ‘Mai’. She never approaches him then.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>He makes her angry, but she still keeps coming back, and despite his attitude towards her not changing, he names her. He calls her Zuko, and she just comes back to hear him say it.</p><p>As the days pass by, his appearance keeps changing. He goes from a black haired youth to a greying old man in a blink of her eye, the only thing about him that remains constant are his eyes. They’re the only thing she can use to identify him.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>One day, he doesn’t come back. He doesn’t come back the next day either, nor the day after that.</p><p>She swims away from the place, heartbroken.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <b> Suki</b>
</p><p> </p><p>He also catches her in a net, and she also falls in love. She is old enough to understand that the people on the surface don’t live like her, and that she also has a type- Surface dwellers who catch her in their nets.</p><p>Just like Mai, he cuts her out of the net and throws her back into sea. Her death will bring the rage of the sea upon his island, and she can understand why he wants to avoid that. However, unlike Mai, he doesn’t tell her to leave when she comes back. Instead, he brings her things that he eats or little trinkets for her to wear. Her favourite is the gold bracelet that she wears around her left wrist. Sometimes, she brings him seashells which he takes with great delight and keeps in his room.</p><p>Soon, his marriage is arranged, but that doesn’t stop him from meeting her clandestinely. She knows nothing of marriage, so she really doesn’t care. The only thing between them is a few small gifts and innocent stolen kisses.</p><p>In the end, death catches up with him and he leaves for wherever Mai left for.</p><p>She doesn’t return to the island after that.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <strong>Jet</strong>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Jet is nice enough, she reasons. However something about her rubs her the wrong way. It’s as if she is planning something that she will not like and despite her being in love, she knows that curiosity never pays well when it comes to most surface dwellers.</p><p> </p><p>In the end, Jet, like all those she has loved, gives her a gift. A permanent burn on her face when she refuses to let her taste her flesh. She fumes and swears revenge. If Jet wanted to eat Ningyo flesh, she would get to do so.</p><p>Years later, a strange creature is caught in a net and is eaten by a local woman. A storm soon hits the sea side village and decimates it, leaving none alive, not even the woman.</p><p>Like she said, if Jet wanted to eat Ningyo flesh, she would get to do so. She just never mentioned the price.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <strong>Sokka </strong>
</p><p> </p><p>By the time she reaches the South Pole, she can speak the language of the surface dwellers with ease and has grown more wary of them.</p><p>The South Pole is colder than what she is used too, but she gets used to it. It’s peaceful for the time, and she doesn’t mind it in the least. She could use a mundane lifestyle after the past few centuries.</p><p> </p><p>Then Sokka comes barreling in.</p><p>For a change it isn’t her who is caught in a net, but she rescues her from drowning during a solo fishing expedition, and Sokka comes back everyday looking for her, and she doesn’t have the heart to turn her down, falling in love again, and Sokka reciprocates in every way. Sometimes, she dives into the cold water and kisses her passionately and is probably the first to ever do so, and is also the only one to marry her.</p><p>The ceremony is simple enough, with Sokka giving her a betrothal necklace made of seal bone and receiving the gold bracelet that she was given by Suki. There is no one but them, and they’re both more than fine with that.</p><p>Unfortunately, Sokka is human, and like all humans, she must and will die.</p><p> </p><p>She isn’t there for the funeral, but when she hears that the final rites took place with the bracelet left untouched by her brother, she smiles and looks at the sky.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <b>Jin</b>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Jin is the last one, and she only goes after him because his smile reminds her of Sokka’s. It is an extremely innocent relationship, cut shot by Jin’s death in a bandit raid.</p><p>This is the only relationship where of hers, where she has not been given a single thing, and she can’t bring herself to care.</p><p> </p><p>She decides that she has had enough of those who live on the surface, and retreats back into the deep, towards the cavern she was born in.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <b>+1</b>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>After a few centuries, she leaves the cavern and ‘adopts’ a small Ningyo boy who she finds off the rocky coast of the Fire Nation. He calls himself Azula, which seems to be a popular name from what he has heard. She drags him by the tail and takes him with her, something he pretends to hate, despite enjoying all the places that she takes him to with her.</p><p> </p><p>One fine day, when they reach the North Pole, and are simply swimming through the canals at night, he notices the prettiest boy that he has ever seen. He has blue eyes and hair paler than the moon, and Azula is, for a better word, infatuated.</p><p>Zuko notices this and once again, pulls him by the tail, ignoring all his protests. He glares at her.</p><p>”What was the need for that?”</p><p>”Humans don’t live forever.” She says with the wisdom of someone who has seen it all. “Don’t bother yourself with them. They will come, and some may go. But us? We go on forever.”</p>
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